Red Breasted Nuthatch

pair have taken up residence in my yard!!!  

I've never had them in my garden before last Fall then suddenly a pair showed up with a little flock of chickadees and stayed all winter.  A couple weeks ago, I put up a chickadee nesting box & they promptly took it over.

Horrible pictures (above & below) but included so you can see they're gathering nesting material. 

 

Edited:  May 2, 2018

It appears the Nuthatches have abandoned the nest box.  I will give it a little longer (before I check) in case I've missed them, but there has been no sign of them for at least ten days now.  I feel certain there is a nest built inside the box.  They put 'pitch' or sap around the entrance hole on the outside of the box (as is customary) but now, no sightings or activity, even in the mornings & evenings when I was seeing them before.  

 

Edited (again):  May 3rd, 2018

The day after posting the above update, I decided to get the ladder out & climb up to see if I could figure out what the heck was going on.  You'll recall in the last update I mentioned it been quite a while since I'd even seen a Nuthatch in my garden let alone around the nest box.  When I opened the box, the first thing I saw was a paper wasp & the beginning (maybe five cells) of its umbrella shaped nest, on one side of the box.  It sickened me.  There absolutely was a nest and it contained EIGHT eggs.   

Without having anything concrete to base my feelings on, I immediately felt strongly that the wasp was the factor that forced the pair to abandon the nest.  When I googled, I found this website:

http://www.sialis.org/paperwasp.htm

The first sentence (if you aren't inclined to click thru the link) says:

"Paper wasps are nasty buggers that seem to love to quickly build umbrella shaped nests in nestboxes, baffles, and feeders. Many birds will avoid or abandon a box that has paper wasps in it - even if they have eggs or young."

It also said destroying the paper wasp nest won't do any good because they are imprinted on the nest box.  I will be removing the nest box from the garden immediately.  There was useful information about how to prevent paper wasps from using nest boxes in your garden (applying wax, vaseline, etc., to the inside surfaces) and I will do that next Spring before putting them back up.

The loss of a viable nest saddens me greatly.  Eight baby Nuthatches would have been a welcome addition to the garden & the local bird population.   

Comments

[Beth @ PlantPostings]

Hi Kathleen: I think they're great photos! Isn't it fun to watch all their antics?! I rarely see red-breasted nuthatches here, and they breed further north in Wisconsin. We have many white-breasted nuthatches year-round, however. Happy spring!

[Shady Gardener]

Hi Kathleen!! They are great photos. Especially when you are fortunate enough to see them! We have had them here, but they really want tree cover near a feeder, if you are going to draw them!
Good to see your blogging posts!!